hit a curb

[deniswhite1]

we got close to 5 feet of snow last night, and the roads were packed with snow. i had no problem driving in this weather, nothing the hand brake can't fix if it starts to understeer. but this time it was diffrent i has going 20km/h, hit the brakes went down to 15km/h, and the things went bad. locked up the wheels, steered all the way to the right and smoked a curb with my left front wheel.

freaking out, ran out to check out the damage: my hubcap was scrached and in the spot were it impacted went in to the rim, tire hold air, and the rim seams fine. so driving home i start knowticing that for me to go streight on the snow my streeing wheel has to be like 30 degrees of center to the left.

as soon as i got in to my uderground parking this got worse: the power streering feels diffrent and the steering wheel does not want to go back to center if you led go of it it just stays where i leave it. when making a left turn it feels like the front wheels are not folowing the same path but visualy both wheels look centered.

its killing me becouse i can make that turn doing 45km\h with hand braking the slide, and here i was going slow and fcked up the car.

by looking at the rim it looks only skrached, and the hubcap got only pushed in so the impact should not have dome alot of damage, this does not explain the streering not going back to center and being off center when driving streight.

help me out guy what can it be.

PS: this is my first sirious accident

[Ron-E-Babe]

Hey Dennis, It sounds like you at the least need an alignment, but more seriously could have damaged a tie rod or control arm.

I'm a lil south of you and got some of that snow as well. I too was out last night sliding through the corners and having fun until I over corrected a slide and slid towards a curb...I was freaking out...then I caught a drift and it lifted me over the curb, thankfully didn't damage anything...

Hope your issue isn't too costly...if you've been good, maybe you can get your insurance to foot the bill? Act of God and all?

[deniswhite1]

the crappy thing is i wasn't doing anything stupied that time and it just happend out of nowere

[Ron-E-Babe]

LOL, usually how it goes

[o4aveohb]

Sounds like you definitely need an alignment, might want to check behind the wheel to see if the lower control arm is alright, someone on here bent their control arm I believe. At least you didn't have on your new wheels yet, otherwise that would have been a horrible start with those.

[deniswhite1]

Sounds like you definitely need an alignment, might want to check behind the wheel to see if the lower control arm is alright, someone on here bent their control arm I believe. At least you didn't have on your new wheels yet, otherwise that would have been a horrible start with those.

thats true, i just hope nothing importent got damaged!

[xtreme 2]

yea sounds like you either snapped the tie rod or bent the control arm... just get on the ground and look at the inside of the wheel... you'll know if it's damaged...

[deniswhite1]

yea sounds like you either snapped the tie rod or bent the control arm... just get on the ground and look at the inside of the wheel... you'll know if it's damaged...

how much do tie rods, and control arms cost?

[xtreme 2]

hmm not usually too much...

[deniswhite1]

went to crappy tire. the rim was bent and the alinement was off, nothing else was bent and the frame is still perfict.

all in all cost me 169$ for the new rim install and balance and alinment of all 4 wheels.
so the the car is back to normal